


Absolution

by StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms



Series: Gods and Heroes [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Advanced Moral Relativity, Blue being exasperated is a feature, I don't know, I make myself sad, M/M, a mini-fic, angst? I guess, for me at least ha, i tried and i failed, not enough Henry, soft moments probably, the airstrip, tolerable continuity, why am I so tragic?, with my love as always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-13 22:51:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16027643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms/pseuds/StormysHealthyCopingMechanisms
Summary: A sub-sequel to AMR. After the fight, the boys head home to see if they can put things back together. Ronan faces his past. It's very mournful, tra-la-la, and gratuitous. Kind of a hurt/comfort? Emotionally, at least. More of a hurt/bicker/comfort.





	1. No, seriously, it's just allergies

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy, I really wanted to write a sequel to AMR, and I started that with these chapters. I had another, absurdly long plot planned out and a lot of high hopes but I'm not super sure I will be able to pull it off. If I can't, I hope you will enjoy this as a small repentant offering.

It was almost midnight by the time they reached the Airstrip.

Adam was asleep in the passenger seat of the BMW, despite having slept most of the day. His fight with the Demon had exhausted him beyond the usual Parrish level of fatigue. He hadn’t even argued when Ronan had decided to collect Adam’s possessions from his apartment, before swinging past Monmouth to pick up Chainsaw.

Opal was curled in the backseat, watching the lights of passing cars slide by her window, and surrounded by Adam’s things. They didn’t take up much space, unsurprisingly, but altogether they were an eccentric collection.

There were Adam’s books (his current textbooks, only, the rest had been returned to the library or sold on), a single box of clothes, a couple each of towels and sheets, that hideous quilt, a few chipped porcelain bowls and plates, cutlery and notebooks.

The baffling scanner. The meagre contents of Adam’s cupboards. The widescreen television.

The supermarket had fired him… for not showing up the night Viridiveste fell.

It was hardly like he could give the truth as an excuse. It was hardly like the supermarket job was a good idea anyway.

But he couldn’t afford the apartment without the job, and even with Viridiveste’s internship money he’d barely clawed his way up from tragic broke to regular broke.

He’d let go without a fight. He’d even let Ronan help pack his things.

As they’d left he’d slumped against Ronan’s shoulder on the stairs, the only admission of emotion related to that miserable, haunted little hellhole.

Ronan would return him to Monmouth when school started. He didn’t assume Parrish would stay there, and he wouldn’t force it, but there was a hum of appeal in the idea of actually _living_ with him. Being near him, whenever Parrish wasn’t at school or at work or at the library. But Adam wouldn’t just accept living rent-free at Monmouth.

That battle was probably for Gansey, once Adam was back to fighting strength.

In spite of Ronan’s music, Adam only woke up when they reached the gate, and was stretching languorously across the width of the front seat when Ronan climbed back into the car.

His fingers brushed Ronan’s shoulder, and Ronan leaned into his hand.

He drove slower to the house than he normally would, and parked the BMW close to the porch.

Parrish’s stuff could wait - possibly forever - and Ronan took the sleepy fluffy ball of bird that was tucked into the top of the linen box instead. Adam agreed to take Opal, who insisted on being carried despite being more lively than anyone else in the car.

The house was dark, abandoned, but Ronan could feel his agitation easing just from the proximity. _Home_.

It wouldn’t necessarily stop the nightmares, but it still felt safer being here, having Parrish, having Opal. He didn’t need to watch his back constantly. He didn’t need to listen to the suffocating metropolitan noise all around, crowding his space and his thoughts.

It was a curious silence at the Airstrip, particularly now, particularly at night. Punctuated, intensified by singular sounds. Branches rubbing in the trees by the house. Insects in the overgrown garden beds. The distant sound of an owl, and the close sound of Chainsaw, shifting and fluffing her wings impatiently.

The sound of Adam’s shoes on the gravel, soft and careful, and the low murmur of cloth as he lifted Opal into his arms.

Ronan listened for his breathing, and the steady, familiar rhythm of his heartbeat, before he moved away. Even like this, weary and night-shadowed, Adam was the most alive entity Ronan had ever encountered. It was like co-existing with a force of nature.

Maybe that was what Pythia meant, about him being loud. Maybe he was some kind of cosmic powerhouse. Maybe that was why Ronan felt his presence in every aching cell of his body.

Or maybe he was just a fucking moron reduced to a pile of goo by a pretty face and a smart mouth.

He opened the door and let Adam pass him, Opal curled over one shoulder.

It was barely warmer inside than out. Adam took Opal upstairs, to what she gloatingly labelled “her room”, and Ronan built a fire. The wood he’d gathered from outside was damp, and smoky, and his eyes were watering by the time he’d gotten it to catch and burn.

Frustration drove him from the living room, and he found winter coats and blankets in the hall closet. He handed a jacket to Adam when he reappeared, and left the blankets on the sofa.

‘Should get my stuff.’ Parrish mumbled, sliding the jacket on.

‘Do it tomorrow.’ Ronan said dismissively, crouching down.

It was testament to Adam’s state of mind that he settled unresistingly on the sofa. He watched Ronan, leaning forward in an attempt to keep himself awake.

Ronan lingered over the fire until the room was warm, and stood up. ‘Hungry?’

Adam shook his head, eyes turning orange with reflected flames. The padded, dark green jacket he was wearing had been Ronan’s originally, and the sight of Adam in it pinched his chest with longing.

‘Ronan?’ Ronan barely heard his name, but he moved closer, stooping to catch Parrish’s legs and lift them onto the sofa. He felt fingertips scrape his arm, demanding a response.

‘Adam.’Acknowledgement. His eyes were still seared from the smoke. His chest hurt - a bruise, possibly, or his lungs protesting the Demon’s damage - and he didn’t know how to answer, what to do.

‘ _Ronan_.’

Adam’s fingers caught his sleeve. Ronan stopped.

The Demon was dead.

His parents were dead.

Noah… Persephone…

Dittley still in hospital. Kavinsky in the river, and Greenmantle’s minion buried under a building.

Ronan hadn’t been to church in more than two years, but he knew he was beyond redemption. He wouldn’t have acted differently, he still couldn’t, but he’d ruined everything along the way.

He sank to his knees, too tired to escape, too far from the fire to pretend he was focused on it.

Greenmantle had survived, and he knew Ronan’s identity. Matthew and Declan were in danger because he’d revealed himself. Gansey would always know him as a murderer. Blue and Henry had literally bled, nearly died because of him. Opal had been alone for years because he’d been too self-absorbed to notice her presence.

_And Adam._

Adam had been tormented by Kavinsky, Greenmantle, the Demon. He’d lost his brother. He’d lost his father. He’d lost Persephone, now, too. He’d changed, been changed, been _forced_ to change.

He was pressing his palm against Ronan’s cheek, covering the side of his face, smoothing his forehead with a thumb. Ronan could hear his breathing change, uncertain. Reacting to Ronan’s distress, searching for a solution. 

Ronan felt his eyes burning, one hidden by Adam’s hand.

He just wanted…

Rest.

He’d expected - no, he’d just _assumed_ it would come eventually. Through vengeance, or death. He wanted to sleep, goddammit, he wanted to sleep for days and days and let this guilt and shame and endless fatigue wash out of him.

Adam moved, attempting to sit up, and Ronan pulled away.

He couldn’t, but Adam could. Adam could sleep for as long as it took to make him better. Ronan would make sure of it.

He left Parrish in the living room and went out for more firewood.

 

 

 

He hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.

Maybe he hadn’t bothered to expect anything at all.

Maybe the notion of standing in this house, offering up his victory, had only arisen after the Demon had fallen. Maybe it had only slipped into his consciousness in the dull, hazy hours of the morning, when he knew he was awake but he didn’t necessarily know the outline of reality.

He pictured his parents, and it ached. Their untouched bedroom, down to the book Aurora had been reading still on her nightstand. The grave, where they’d been buried together. It drowned him.

There was no relief to any of it.

Except Adam.

Ronan couldn’t look at him without hope and terror snagging in his stomach. It was like falling, a sensation Ronan was intimately familiar with. It was like seeing him for the first time.

He wasn’t the Widower anymore. There was no reason to be. He was just Ronan Lynch, the broken, the non-functional, the twisted one.

He was a murderer. Not even human.

Adam would leave. He’d have to. Ronan didn’t have a future. He barely had a life.

And Gansey - already out of reach? He’d chosen to ignore Ronan’s faults, but it couldn’t last.

The sun was hinting at the horizon. Everything was gray.

He went to scrape together breakfast. They’d failed to go grocery shopping, in their delayed flight from the city. Ronan only found tins and half-thawed food from Adam’s apartment and dubious looking Christmas leftovers from Declan and Matthew’s last visit.

He made baked beans from a tin, erratic potato cakes from frozen mash, and excessively bland sausages, and returned to wave the noxious offering under Parrish’s nose.

It took him little time to wake, and even less for Opal to arrive, irritatingly alert, in the vicinity of the food.

Breakfast was done. Ronan was tired tired tired…

He sharpened the axe in the little woodshed outside the kitchen door, and chopped more logs for the fire. It was easy work, mindless, repetitive, but he focused on every swing, ignoring the stinging wind and wielding the blade like he was still slamming it into the skull of an enemy.

He was broken, broken.

It was easier, at least, in daylight. To see Adam awake, and unafraid of him, was a reminder that he was already known. Even accepted, despite being so… wrong.

He was _damned_.

Adam didn’t talk about the previous night. He didn’t talk about anything. He thanked Ronan for breakfast and retrieved his books from the car.

His solution, as ever, was studying.

Koehn had been so embarrassed about delivering him into the clutches of a psychopath that she’d awarded him the internship credits despite the collapse of VVC. She’d also insisted upon sending Adam to a psychiatrist as soon as school returned. He was clearly disturbed by the idea, but he didn’t argue. He just kept his mouth shut and behaved.

He was still reading ahead, when Ronan gave up the wood chopping and came inside. He’d moved from the sofa to the dining room table, and was writing notes. Opal sat nearby, eating mint jelly straight from the jar with her fingers.

There was something sitting in Ronan’s throat. He mistook it for some choked feeling, a half-swallowed whimper, but it was actually blood. He coughed it up in the kitchen sink, indiscreet enough to draw Adam into the doorway.

It was darker than it should have been, almost black. A parting gift from the Demon.

Adam came close, attentively, but he didn’t speak. His own bruises were sickly coloured patterns on his face and hands, probably elsewhere, if Ronan had had the courage to ask. There was a raw cut across the middle of his forehead, but someone, possibly Blue, had taped a large square of bandage over it.

His gaze was fixed on Ronan’s blood-flecked lips, and the bandage rendered his frown amusingly quizzical.

’S’nothing.’ Ronan insisted, and Adam left him be.

 

 

 

Ronan found other jobs. He cleaned the gutters, treading the roof as carefully as a tightrope, and dangling his feet over the edge. He taught Opal to play some card games, and by necessity, began teaching her to count.

The issue of her education, her future, he refused to contemplate.

He was more interested in teaching her to defend herself, to sneak and run and climb, to survive.

Adam preferred to read.

He read like the world ceased to exist around him. He read everything, indiscriminately, textbooks and novels and Aurora’s old notebooks. He read on the couch, sitting on the cushions or the arms, or lying on his stomach or his side or his back, sitting or lying on the floor, leaning on piano, sitting at the table or on the kitchen counter or the stairs.

Ronan got used to navigating around him, like he was furniture. He told Opal to do the same.

He thought it helped, the Airstrip and the books and the silence. He thought Adam could begin to reorganise everything in his mind, if he was just left alone.

So Ronan left him alone. Conversations were rare, rarely lasting two or three sentences. Single words usually sufficed to convey what was needed, and Adam expressed no desire to receive or contribute more. He liked the quiet, and Ronan didn’t want to do anything other than watch him. Touch him, if possible, but he could’ve survived without it. He could have survived just knowing that Adam _was_.

When he wasn’t reading he was sleeping, and the second night they exchanged the fireplace for the heater and retreated to Declan’s room. Opal had claimed Ronan’s, and he couldn’t face his parents’ room, so it fell to Declan’s meticulously arranged territory to accommodate them.

His bookshelves were more full, anyway, and his bed was bigger.

Adam was less awkward than Ronan, negotiating the bed. Had they ever slept together when Ronan wasn’t healing or drunk or otherwise debilitated? He didn’t know how to just… invite himself into Parrish’s space, without some dire excuse.

Adam simply showered, changed his clothes, and waited under the covers with a book until Ronan uneasily came to do the same thing.

It wasn’t as though he could sleep. He couldn’t heal, despite the burns and cuts from the earlier scuffle, when Greenmantle’s lackey had interrupted his regeneration with the electric current. It was the only thing that could disturb his normal healing, and the only reason he’d ever obtained scars. There was a long silver line across his wrist from an encounter with a toaster when he’d been nine, and little specks of discolouration from experiments with batteries when he’d been thirteen. And now he wasn’t healing the Demon’s contributions, either.

The point to the bed-sharing exercise was entirely the sharing part, from Ronan’s perspective.

It was an opportunity to brush Adam’s high cheekbones with his fingers, and fine eyebrows, and eyelids, stinging after a day of endlessly devouring written words. To acclimatise to Adam’s silence, his pervasive fatigue, the full winter clothes he wore despite the blankets and the heating. He knew the feel of Adam’s skin, the exact width of his waist, the pattern of his ribcage. He would have been able to map it from memory. But he’d never seen more than Adam wanted, and he’d never questioned it.

Adam’s hands were more than enough, precise and heavy. And his jaw, cheekbones, the mesmerising dip between the two, something about Parrish’s features that made Ronan think of hunger… or feel it. He knew Adam’s wrists with unforeseen familiarity, the bones and the distinct veins and the strong, slightly too rapid pulse. He knew Adam’s eyes, too, the way the smallest changes, a gentle blink, or a lowered gaze, or a slight inclination of his head would signal some thoughtfulness or intention that was otherwise impossible to detect.

Ronan shrugged off his jacket, then his shirt. Normally he slept in his underwear, or naked, but even removing his jeans seemed uncomfortably presumptuous.

It wasn’t as though they weren’t close, suddenly. It was just evident that neither of them wanted a discussion about all that happened, about what any of it meant. Things had gone so quickly that Ronan couldn’t guess at Parrish’s thoughts… or what he had been made by the rapid, disorienting events of the previous week.

He stalled by poking through Declan’s drawers for some softer pants, furtively observing Adam’s expression. His gaze hardly shifted from the book he held, but when it did, casually flickering over to Ronan’s movement, there was a mild crease between his eyebrows. Irritation? Confusion? It was too difficult to tell, and then he’d looked away. 

Ronan changed, and forced himself to climb into the bed without anxiety, without eagerness.

He expected Adam would read and then sleep, close, a hypnotising presence.

But he shut the book immediately.

The thumb he pressed to Ronan’s lower lip was a question - was there a problem? Ronan forced his shoulders to slacken, even though Adam’s proximity made him feel oxygen-starved and feral, and Adam kissed him.

They tangled, surprisingly freely. Adam’s arms hooked under Ronan’s shoulders and Ronan’s held taut either side of Adam’s neck, and their knees jostling with shocking gracelessness.

Adam smelled like wood smoke and tinned peaches. Ronan couldn’t stop touching him.

When Adam’s cheek fell against the inside of Ronan’s elbow, weight still dragging at him, mouth still making demands, Ronan slowed, until the press of lips to skin was only Adam staving off sleep. They lay side-by-side for a while, lazy and silent, and Ronan turned off the lamp.

The night brought rain, beating against the window in pleasing symphony. It had been worth cleaning the gutters, for this and the snow that would follow.

Adam slept, quiet and still. If he had nightmares he didn’t mark them, physically or psychically. His chest rose and fell, no matter how long Ronan watched, and his breath brushed Ronan’s arm. The more Ronan concentrated on him, every sense of him, the more the darkness spun and sleep seemed possible.

It wasn’t.

He had a headache by dawn, and he discovered damp along his neck, blood oozing from his ear throughout the night. He hadn’t noticed it. Adam did, shortly after waking, merely from the stains on the pillow.

‘Is it bad?’ He asked, half-slurred with sleep.

Ronan hadn’t moved to wipe his neck. He hadn’t wanted to disturb Parrish.

‘Don’t know.’ He shrugged, feeling the motion tighten the muscles of his arm against Adam’s cheekbone, the corner of his mouth.

‘Does it hurt?’

’No.’

The coughing from yesterday had. The bleeding itself, not particularly. Adam’s eyes narrowed, like he didn’t fully believe the answer, but he didn’t say anything.

‘It’s still early.’ He remarked instead, and Ronan recognised a request to remain where he was. ‘How long has it been raining?’

‘Since ten.’

‘Mm. What’s for breakfast?’


	2. Disclaimer: Sadness

Most of the morning was spent fixing the fence. The cute, pointless wood picket around the yard had rotted in places, and fallen apart in others. It hadn’t been a long time, but it was left untended through the weather, and Ronan occupied himself locating the tools he needed to fix it and patching it back up.

The chicken coop they’d once used, small and haphazard as it had been, was now further dilapidated in the far corner of the yard.

Once, it had been Aurora’s. Then it had been gifted to Matthew, when he was still small, and Declan and Ronan had helped him with his tasks. He’d named all the chickens, but forgotten what they looked like and frequently misremembered and renamed them. He’d gathered their eggs, cradled in his small pudgy hands. He’d been taught - by Aurora mostly - how to pick up the chickens without holding them too tightly.

Years earlier Aurora had taught Ronan the same thing, with Matthew. Declan had already been able to, but Ronan’s strength, even at three, was dangerous. He had needed to learn how to open doors, turn taps, write, hold a fork differently, to avoid breaking things on an hourly basis.

He’d thrown something at Declan once - a toy, probably - and he remembered Declan ducking out of the way to avoid getting hit in the head, and straightening up with wide eyes when the object put a hole in the plaster wall.

He hadn’t done it again. And Declan had never told Aurora the real reason the dent was there.

Ronan wondered how Niall would have reacted, back then. He’d always been excited about Ronan’s abilities, and Aurora had always needed to do damage control. Ronan would break something, and Niall would ask curiously if he’d held it too tight or wrenched it too hard, and Aurora would swoop in disapprovingly and remind him to use moderation.

He didn’t make any progress fixing the chicken coop.

He chose, instead, to chop firewood with renewed savagery. He had enough already, and it didn’t pose any difficulty, but this activity was also the most violent one he could find.

He stopped to toss aside the pieces, and experienced the coarse, strangling rise of blood in his throat. He coughed, coughed again, and spat on the ground.

‘You didn’t do a medical.’

Adam was standing a few feet back, out of his eye-line, motionless. Ronan had no idea how long he’d been there. He hadn’t heard him approach, but he hadn’t been listening.

A medical wouldn’t have helped. Ronan knew that from experience. He wasn’t sure why this bothered Adam so much.

‘I don’t need one.’

‘What if it’s serious?’

‘What if it is? What would _you_ do?’

‘I wouldn’t wait around brooding about it.’

The barb sank deeper than Adam probably intended it, and Ronan stared at him. Yes, he grieved. He would never be able to stop. He would never want to.

‘Maybe I don’t _forget_ as quickly as you.’ He said sharply.

Adam didn’t answer, but he stayed, watching, curled over himself and huddled close to the corner of the house, shielded from the wind.

The axe was in Ronan’s hand, the long wooden handle splintering slightly in his grip, but he didn’t continue chopping. He didn’t want _this_ to become _that_.

He slung it onto the pile instead, jaw clenched.

What could the Veil do for him? What would Cheng’s precious machines do to help, if he was sick? He couldn’t be treated as a regular human. He couldn’t be taken to a hospital.

Parrish left, finally, returned to the house. It was a double-relief, leaving Ronan alone and preventing anything more acidic from being said. 

When Ronan went inside, he found food on the kitchen bench, resourcefully patched together from their sparse supply. He’d need to go to the shops. He’d need to go into town.

Opal materialised at his side, and he winced. His interpersonal awareness today was obviously rubbish, if both of them could get the drop on him. She was frowning up at his face, and simultaneously eyeing off his meal.

‘Where’s Adam?’ He asked, pointedly sliding his plate from her reach. It wasn’t as though he’d avoid Parrish, but he wasn’t keen on being surprised by him again.

‘You yelled at him.’

‘No I didn’t.’ Ronan wrinkled his nose at her. ‘Spy.’

‘Liar.’

‘Mutant.’

She copied his expression, squishing her little nose.

He repeated; ‘Where’s Adam?’

She looked at his plate before looking back at his face slyly, and made an “I don’t know” noise through closed lips.

He had to bargain a chunk of tuna before she yielded. ‘He went on the phone.’ She pointed to the hall.

 _Gansey_ , Ronan thought curiously. Then, _Cheng_.

He was sitting out front, in the BMW. Ronan could see him through the living room window. Talking, but not animatedly.

The fire was nearly out. Ronan fixed it. He looked at Parrish’s notes - pre-reading - and his current book. He played cards with Opal, tried to consolidate the concept of odd and even numbers.

He waited until Adam came back in, through the hall, and the doorway into the living room. Until Adam’s hands were on his shoulders, and he could feel the chill of them on his neck.

‘Did you eat?’ Adam’s tone was unfairly light.

‘Yeah.’

Adam moved around him, settled by the fire, and turned his hands in the warmth. He searched Ronan’s face, and murmured; ‘I thought I didn’t get there fast enough.’

Ronan frowned - _Gansey? The others?_ \- but the meaning slowly sank in. The Demon.

His stomach turned.

‘Guilt complex.’ He answered mockingly. He wasn’t sure that was right, but he didn’t know what to say. _You are not responsible_.

‘I talked to Gansey. The bleeding isn’t serious.’ Adam continued, ignoring him. ‘It should pass.’

_I thought I didn’t get there fast enough._

Like Ronan hadn’t.

He swallowed, uneasily conscious of Adam’s scrutiny, and looked at the cards spread across the rug. Opal was moving sets of them into piles - the patterns 2, 3, 4, and the symbols, hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. ‘You want to come into town?’

 

 

 

He hadn’t been back since the funeral. It had been a waking nightmare, and seeing them buried barely a hundred feet from where he’d found their bodies had made him sick.

He hated the sight of the river, winding alongside the road. The church was on the near side of the bridge, town on the far side, separated by quaint green hills and stone walls. He thought about driving around, taking the backroads, but he knew he’d end up here anyway.

He hated the still-standing church, the glimpses of it through freshly planted foliage. The sign on the road had been taken down, and they’d tried to disguise its presence, to stop gawkers and tourists from prying.

Ronan had heard there was a plaque, but he’d never seen it.

He’d been invited to the yearly memorial service, but he’d never considered going.

He’d heard other family members still brought flowers every day.

Adam’s hand curled around his arm, and Ronan eased off the accelerator, dragging in a breath.

He still took the turn too sharply, and some of Parrish’s stuff toppled over in the backseat. Opal hadn’t wanted to come - she despised heavily populated areas even more than Ronan did.

He hadn’t told Adam they’d come here. He hadn’t even risked telling himself.

The wheels of the BMW dug out tracks in the gravel when Ronan stopped the car. He couldn’t let go of the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure he was breathing.

Adam’s hand tightened, and then released him. Ronan heard him open the door and step out, leaving it hanging wide.

The left-hand door of the church was open, exposing an arch of complete darkness. There was another car, tucked around the side of the building. Ronan didn’t look too closely, in case he recognised it.

He saw Adam pass in front of the church, drawing near to the shadows, and he shoved the driver’s door open.

The shout died on his lips - Adam didn’t go inside. He didn’t even look.

Ronan was out of the car. He could feel the gravel under his shoes, and the firm earth beneath that. He could feel the breeze. He could smell the river and the willows.

He moved, oscillating along an alternate route to Parrish. His hands were trembling.

There was a plaque, set in the wall near the door. Commemorating a tragic explosion, commending the efforts of the community to rebuild. He read the names, forcing himself to silently say them, until he reached his parents and his breath stuttered.

He didn’t go inside either.

There was a low gate to the path into the graveyard.

_Graveyard._

They’d walked through it as children, often. Not playful, but not morbid.

 _My parents are buried here_.

Adam had gone through, leaving the gate open, but he was examining random headstones, not searching for something specific. Close enough to be reached, far enough to give Ronan privacy.

The victims of Caedes had all been buried here. There was a brutal incongruity in laying them to rest in the place of their murders, but it had been done without question. Many, descendants of longstanding local families, had been interred with their ancestors. The priest, too, had been buried with great ceremony and significance near to the Church and nearest to God.

The Lynches were relative newcomers to the area, of course. Their place was isolated, on the far edge of the lot. The headstone was white marble, shared. Ronan still remembered every line etched onto it.

He remembered Greenmantle’s face. The faces of other colleagues, other parents.

He remembered Matty’s tears, and Declan’s perfect, formal silence. He remembered breaking the car window when they’d gotten home, watching the door warp from the force he’d used to slam it.

He didn’t remember much from after that. For weeks, they’d been out of school, out of the world. People had provided for them, but Ronan hadn’t noticed. He’d fought with Declan whenever they’d spoken, but Declan must have found time to arrange things. Where he would live, and Matthew’s new school. It would have been Ronan’s, if he hadn’t taken off for the city.

He found the grave, green overhead, rather than pebbles. He read the names, absorbed the blow. The words ‘beloved mother’ imprinted into pale marble forever.

_We killed the Demon. We sent that bitch back to hell._

The breeze was colder. His face was damp.

_I should have been here._

Adam was next to him, again, sudden enough to make him shiver. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t touch Ronan.

_Forgive me._

 

 

 

The rest, getting back to the car, getting put in the passenger’s seat, getting into town, was a blur. Adam must have shopped. Adam must have parked in the furthest space in the parking lot.

Adam must have brought him home.

 

 

 

He found good brandy in the dining room cupboard, and it went all-too-nicely on his raw throat. Adam cooked - Ronan couldn’t remember what - and played with Opal.

He sat by the fire, and wondered if it really cleansed. He wondered if he would burn like a witch.

Adam gently nudged him towards the shower, and then towards bed.

The brandy had disappeared, but Ronan hadn’t noticed how much he’d drunk. He clambered under the blankets, half-dressed, and dug his face into the mattress under Adam’s shoulder.

The hushed whisper of pages turning, and Adam softly running a hand along his spine, finally lulled Ronan to sleep.

Barely an hour had passed before something unpleasant was crawling through his dreams, oozing and seeping black sludge, engulfing the world…

He hit something hard on the way out, heard something break as he kicked over the bedside table, and the room was dark, smothering, but he could see the bed, and the shadow crouched on it, black and white as a photograph.

He realised he was balanced in the corner of the ceiling at the same time as he realised the figure was Adam, his skin contrasting sharply with the blanket tangled over his shoulders.

‘Ronan?’ Adam’s voice was messy with sleep and confusion, but he sought Ronan out, eyes widening.

Ronan dropped from the ceiling, landing on the floor with a soft thud, and scrambled forwards.

‘Did-’ He crawled over the edge of the mattress, found Adam’s shoulders, hands trembling, adrenaline burning him up. ‘Did I-’

‘No.’ Adam replied. ‘ _No_. Jesus, Ronan, you were on the ceiling.’

He pulled Ronan down onto the bed, wrapping him in the blanket, and held him still.

Ronan felt his heart rate slow, anchored by Adam’s body heat, the weight of his arms around Ronan’s shoulders. He felt the tranquil silence of the world outside the window soften the edges of the memory.

‘I can’t-’ The panic had eased, but Ronan could still taste fear. He wouldn’t be able to sleep again. ‘I _can’t_ -’

_Sleep. Heal. Get any fucking better._

‘I know.’ Adam’s voice was faintly muffled, lips behind Ronan’s jaw. His fingernails scratched across Ronan’s shoulders, the ridges of his spine, the back of his neck, the fluffier-than-usual hair above his ears. ‘I’m sorry.’

Being home was supposed to help. Killing the Demon was supposed to _help_.

Adam moved his head, dragging his chin across Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan could feel the fatigue in it, sleepily insistent.

He muttered; ‘Go back to sleep.’

 

 

 

Ronan repaired the chicken coop. It was fiddly work, mainly because of the wildly erratic way it had originally been assembled. Opal pretended to help, while crawling over him to reach the snacks tucked into his jacket pockets.

She was wearing a tricoloured sweater, large stripes of white and blue and red, smeared with mud and other more dubious things, and her jeans from the knee down were green with grass stains.

The shirts and sweaters from when Matthew was little were good enough, but it was a pain in the ass trying to find small enough pants to stop her tripping over them or letting them fall down whenever she ran or climbed. It had taken an awkward conversation with a shop assistant, and Ronan finally lifting Opal up and presenting her in order to cut out the whole “explanation” thing, but Ronan had managed to obtain children’s jeans.

She’d already torn one pair, not irreparably, according to Parrish, but Ronan would still have to get her more.

Adam found them both, crouching in the garden, filthy to the knees and bickering over the last Twizzler.

He lingered irrationally in the cold, tucked into his jacket and further tucking his hands into his pockets. Ronan ignored him until the scrutiny was unbearable. Something about Adam’s attention (aside from the usual undercurrent of vibrating self-consciousness) was exceptionally distracting.

‘What?’

Adam watched him from under lowered eyelids, his lips curving into an almost-smile. ‘Nothing.’

Opal defected to him, standing on his shoes, and now they were both watching.

Ronan shoved a set of pliers into his pocket and swivelled towards them. He growled something unflattering as he passed, taking the opportunity to examine Adam head to toe.

He looked unharmed, from Ronan’s outburst last night, from the chilled air, from his own pensive solemnity. He was always focused, knife-sharp, but today he looked brighter. His eyes were crystals.

Ronan collected more logs to carry inside and kicked his boots against the pavers near the back door, dislodging mud and wood chips. Adam caught up with him.

‘When will we have enough firewood?’ He asked patiently. When Ronan looked up, he indicated the shoulder-high stack of split logs, and Ronan frowned.

’Just trying to keep you alive, frostbite.’

‘And I appreciate it.’ Adam answered, leaning on the doorframe.

Opal scooted in the door first, ignoring Ronan’s complaint about her tracking god-knows-what across the kitchen. Adam didn’t follow, and he didn’t move as Ronan stepped into his space.

‘What?’ Heat crawled up his spine, his heart rate accelerated. Nothing in the world would ever be capable of replicating the effect Adam had on him.

Adam kissed him, his lips cold, his mouth warm. His nose pressed into the heat of Ronan’s cheek, and his thumbs curled under the edges of Ronan’s jacket where it was unzipped.

He was different. More awake. More alive. More himself.

Ronan sighed when he pulled back. ‘What’s up with you?’

He felt Adam shrug under his hands, noncommittal but not uncertain. ‘Lunch?’

 

 

 

 

The worst thing Richard Gansey III might have ever done, was inflict lunch with his parents on Blue Sargent.

Although, all things considered (i.e. Helen), it went better than he initially expected.

His mother approved, because Blue was smart and beautiful, and she had in mind, strategically, the next generation of Ganseys. It didn’t escape Gansey’s attention that she made several inquiries that skated a little close to the concept of engagement and marriage.

His father approved because Blue was well-educated, but not arrogant, artistic, but practical enough to have ‘a real job’, polite, but with no qualms about expressing her opinions.

Helen approved because according to her it was obvious that he’d found the one person in the country who would date him with absolutely no regard for, or in fact, _in spite_ of his money.

Beauty, intelligence, creativity, common sense, and integrity.

Gansey wasn’t entirely sure what he’d actually managed to do in order to deserve Blue, and he was starting to think she looked like a better option as offspring than he did.

‘So, Blue.’ Helen started, and Gansey looked up from his ceviché in alarm. He knew that tone. That was a dangerous tone. ‘What do you do in your line of work, exactly?’

‘It’s basically team-building.’ Blue answered placidly, without even glancing at Gansey.

They’d discussed this during the drive. Gansey had carefully suggested that most people wouldn’t believe tiny Blue Sargent worked in crime-fighting, or security, or any kind of violent occupation at all. Blue had rolled her eyes, but had taken pity on him and agreed to… omit certain truths.

‘We offer a lot of team-building activities.’ Blue continued. ‘You’d be amazed how many people don’t grasp the concept of cooperation.’

_Uh oh._

They’d discussed this during the drive, too. Blue accused Gansey of hiding things, because as good as he was at lying, he “always gave it away by being squirrelly”. Gansey protested that he was just keeping track of things mentioned across the DarkNet. And not disclosing them to the others.

He had reasons, obviously. And Ronan and Adam were out of contact anyway. Henry was still busy repressing the whole Demon encounter. Gansey was at the point of asking him for recommendations.

‘Is it mostly corporate?’ Helen asked, with harrowing curiosity. ‘What kind of activities?’

‘Sometimes high schoolers.’ Blue explained dryly. ‘We do locked-room type games, and… other problem-solving exercises.’

A vivid memory of Ronan, blood-spattered and axe-wielding, crossed Gansey’s mind. He hastily shoved a forkful of fish into his mouth, and avoided making eye contact with Helen.

Ronan and Adam, at least, would always protect one another. It had taken a shockingly long time, but Gansey had finally realised the extent of their loyalty. Or, more accurately, Adam’s, because Ronan had taken Adam to the Lynch home weeks ago and Gansey had known what that meant to him.

For Ronan, home meant _family_.

It was always more difficult to determine exactly what Adam was thinking.

But then again, Ronan was the _Widower_.

It had been an overwhelming couple of months.

Ronan and Adam. The most expressive person Gansey knew, and the least expressive. It had a symmetry, but there was still something dauntingly incendiary about the combination. Despite the Widower, despite the doubts about Ronan’s actions, Gansey couldn’t think of him without devotion, and with that came awareness of Ronan’s fragility.

He might have been reckless, impulsive, at times dishonest, morally unpredictable, violent, and a deeply, _deeply_ rude individual… but he was also furiously loyal and brilliant and funny and occasionally breathtakingly kind.

Adam, also, was indispensable, as an individual and as a friend, but Gansey would have given a lot for some certainty about what went on in his head, especially concerning Ronan.

It was difficult to imagine anyone else seeing Ronan the way Gansey did. Loving him as much, or wanting to protect him as badly as Gansey did. 

But Gansey had never predicted he’d be affected by anyone the way he was affected by Blue. So absorbed by her voice and her habits and her dreams of the future, that when Chimera had been vanquished, the loss of focus hadn’t demolished him the way he was afraid it would. Even finding out about Ronan hadn’t destroyed his faith.

Within minutes, there had been the thought of Blue, clawing to the forefront of his mind.

Maybe a different future, with her. A fresh start. Even the collapse of the Veil’s reputation had some promise of her freedom… the possibility that a new city called. Or, a new country, like Blue wanted. A dozen cities. A hundred.

Helen poked him hard in the ribs and he jumped, protesting with a shrill noise. ‘Ouch!?’

‘It’s rude to stare, little brother.’ She said, tapping smartly on the bridge of his glasses.

Across the table, Blue twitched a bemused eyebrow.

‘Do you like working with young people?’ Gansey’s mother asked, in a wilful but unsubtle attempt to reorient the conversation towards procreation.

Gansey fought down an interjection. His mother had spades of respect for (and personal solidarity with) career women… but the family name was a significant priority, and that was Gansey’s responsibility, whether he liked it (or was twelve years too young for it), or not.


	3. I just write what the gremlins in my head make me write, I swear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *nervously hopes nobody I know ever finds this* I'm looking at you bro. Seriously, don't.

‘I don’t agree.’ Blue said, firmly. She was sitting on the end of her assigned bed, peeling her shoe off, and Gansey was fidgeting on the pretty but apparently purely decorative couch by the window.

He definitely didn’t look comfortable sitting there, but it could have been the conversation.

‘It’s Ronan.’ Gansey repeated, sounding pained. And after a pause; ‘And _Adam_.’

Blue thought; _this is so not how I imagined this conversation would go_.

It had taken a long time for Gansey to notice something going on between the two of them. Longer than Blue. Much longer than Henry.

Ronan’s near-death had been the tipping point.

And Adam’s terrifying, impassive silence. He wouldn’t let them take Ronan away from him. He wouldn’t leave him to the Veil’s medical agents, or to Henry’s first aid tech. He wouldn’t even be shifted out of arm’s reach.

Gansey had described getting to them, grabbing Adam, trying to see if he was okay. He said Adam had looked right through him, without recognition, without feeling.

Blue had the same experience, when she got back. Ronan had still been unconscious, badly injured, not healing. Adam had stared at her blankly, hadn’t registered anything she said.

Admittedly, Gansey hadn’t been far off heartbroken himself.

When Henry had finally assured them that Ronan would recover, unpredictably but probably fully, Blue had never encountered greater collective relief.

Gansey had cried. Adam had taken a breath like he’d never experienced oxygen before. Even Blue had needed a moment to control the urge to gleefully punch things.

But it was Lynch, and he was unkillable. She should have trusted her instincts.

She’d expected surprise, when Gansey had made the connection. At the worst, shock, a little baffled disbelief.

She hadn’t expected his actual reaction, of stunned confusion followed swiftly by intense protectiveness.

‘You know what it would do to him.’ Gansey continued, shifting on the couch anxiously. ‘If something happened.’

‘Which him?’ Blue asked, exasperated.

Gansey dramatically tossed his hands up. ‘Either of them.’

She pulled off her other shoe and contemplated throwing it at him.

This wasn’t new ground. Gansey was terrified of losing Ronan, terrified of losing Adam. Terrified of seeing either of them get hurt.

‘Have you ever-’ She interjected quickly; ‘-considered the possibility that digging up stuff could make it more dangerous for them?’

‘When does it not?’ Gansey asked, flashing a smile, but Blue could see him turning over the question, probably for the thousandth time today.

She didn’t know what, specifically, he was searching for, but she could hazard a guess. An explanation of Adam’s powers. A measurement of his strength. The salvation of the Widower. The likelihood of Colin Greenmantle’s revenge, and where it could fall.

Blue didn’t let herself worry too much about Parrish or Lynch. She didn’t have the emotional processing capacity. They were like walking hurricanes, both of them, sweeping everything up into a frenzy, and trying to control the fallout seemed impossible.

It wouldn’t stop Gansey from trying.

But he was prying, too. Prying into Adam’s life, and Ronan’s history, and Blue strongly suspected he wouldn’t like what he found.

 

 

 

‘Are you going to grow it out?’ Adam asked quietly.

He was dragging his fingernails through Ronan’s hair, fluffy enough now to tangle. He imagined he’d enjoy seeing it long. Curly, like the pictures of Ronan on the piano, hung on the walls, on the table in the hall. There was even one in Declan’s room - taped to the back of a shelf behind a set of political biographies - of the three boys together, dressed in suits. Someone’s wedding, possibly.

‘No.’ Ronan pulled his bottom lip with his teeth. ‘It’s a pain in the ass.’

After lunch, he’d stayed indoors, because Adam had wanted him to. His jeans were wet, so he dangled his legs off the edge of the sofa nearest the fire. Adam sat at the far end, with Ronan’s head resting on his thigh. Opal was playing hide-and-seek with Chainsaw around the house, and for the most part they were alone.

‘In the suit?’

‘All the time.’ Ronan sounded drowsy. He flicked one hand slightly. ‘It’s too thick.’

Adam huffed a laugh, startled by the admission. ‘Cute.’

Like Matthew’s hair, but dark. How different it would make Ronan, with all his sharpness, to be framed in soft curls.

The visit to the graveyard hadn’t lightened him, but he’d been more purposeful since. Adam’s formless fear - of Ronan’s fragility, his grief - was receding. He couldn’t negotiate the depths of it, or offer help. He didn’t know how.

The rest - Noah, Persephone, the lingering memory of having monsters inside his head - he tried to ignore.

It was puerile, but it was effective.

School started in four days. He had too much to do to leave studying for later.

When they got back, there would be apartment and job hunting. Updates from the Veil. Tracking Greenmantle. If he could wrap his mind around the next month’s work he’d almost be ready.

There’d be Ronan, too. Monmouth didn’t seem so difficult to endure when he considered Ronan’s presence… being near him, being a possible source of comfort.

Adam followed the length of Ronan’s nose with a finger, over his lips, to his chin, and along the hard edge of his jaw.

It was safe here. There was so much to see, that Adam couldn’t see anything else. The smell of wood smoke pervaded everything, the sound of rain or wind on the windows was constant. And Ronan was a floodlight, too bright, too much for anything else to matter.

Adam hadn’t had a hallucination since they’d arrived. He wasn’t certain if they were hallucinations, or a neurological side effect of Greenmantle’s machine. Little surges of activity in unexpected sections of his brain.

They could have stopped completely, but he wasn’t sure.

He moved his thumb to the half-moon of skin behind Ronan’s ear, and downwards, pressing fingertips to the sinew along Ronan’s neck. His pulse drummed uncompromisingly beneath his skin.

Ronan mumbled his name, and Adam looked down. Miraculously, he was dozing, eyelashes fluttering almost imperceptibly over fatigue-darkened skin.

If he had a nightmare, Adam was stuck, but he wasn’t worried. The worst Ronan had done the night before was kick over a lamp.

Would he be the same, if he could sleep? What did it mean, to stay awake for two years, to require suffering for relief?

Adam brushed his forehead, pushing back the faintest-ever suggestion of a fringe. It was reflex, more than anything else. He didn’t want to wake Ronan.

Ronan Lynch. The prodigal son.

The church had been beautiful. The headstone, too. Ronan, under an overcast sky, so _much_ it hurt to look at him.

Adam snagged the nearest book, and continued reading.

The fire had burned down to embers within a few hours, but Ronan hadn’t stirred. He was sleeping more deeply, utterly still, and Adam delicately moved him just enough to stand up. He slept on, oblivious, until Adam pushed another log onto the fire and the damp bark started crackling.

Ronan sat up, using one long arm over the back of the sofa for leverage. His expression was startled and sleep-softened, and Adam wanted to savour it, to memorise every detail.

He cleared his throat; ‘How long was I -’ and gestured vaguely.

‘Nearly three hours.’ Adam told him, disguising relief. ‘Did you dream?’

‘Nothing.’ Ronan breathed, shaking his head. He caught Adam’s waist, pulled him closer, pressed his face against Adam’s stomach. ‘Not a damn thing.’

 

 

 

If there was a sign, Ronan missed it.

Adam came to bed late, the heat from his shower dissipating into the room. Ronan was already slouched on the mattress, turning Declan’s alarm clock over in his hands. It had stopped working a long time ago, but he still remembered the infuriatingly shrill sound it made.

He’d already decided to take the axe to it.

Adam sat on the edge of the bed, and Ronan realised he wasn’t wearing his traditional overnight sweater. He curled an arm over one of Adam’s shoulders, laid his chin on the other, and murmured; ‘Goddamn, Parrish, you look naked.’

Adam made a gentle noise of amusement. ‘You’re too hot-’

Ronan interrupted with a grin. ‘Why, thank you.’

Adam shoved him and he slumped dramatically onto his back.

‘You’re so charming, Parrish.’

‘When we met-’ Adam countered quietly, ‘-you offered to walk me home.’

Ronan snorted, lifted his chin, and snagged Adam’s shirt.

‘I was doing my civic duty.’ He protested, but after a moment he frowned. ‘You know we went to school together for like a year?’

Adam smiled, let Ronan pull him down, and negotiated his way under the blankets. ‘We never _met_.’

A furtive glance convinced Ronan that he wasn’t teasing. Adam didn’t remember him? Adam had never noticed him?

That had… essentially been his intention. But not at _all_?

Adam observed his silence, and repeated curiously; ’We didn’t meet.’

‘No.’ Ronan allowed. ‘No, we didn’t meet.’

There was a pause, and Ronan didn’t identify the rabbit hole Parrish was plunging into until he’d pushed himself onto an elbow and was staring.

‘Did you know who I was?’

Ronan cringed, unable to stop himself. ‘I knew who you _were_ , but I didn’t-’

Adam rolled over, catching both of his shoulders and pinning him, lip curled up.

‘How?’ He hesitated, leaned forward, pressing his weight down. ‘Why?’

‘Gansey.’ Ronan sold him out shamelessly. ‘Never shut up about you.’

Not _I always looked for your face_. Not _I always wanted to talk to you._ Not _I waited every day for him to mention your name._

Adam’s teeth flashed, but Ronan couldn’t properly guess his reaction. ‘I knew of you, too.’

It didn’t sound positive. Ronan ignored the fact that he’d ruined everything and focused on Adam’s grip, his hands, wrists, bright blue eyes. ‘Uh huh.’

‘Like mythology.’ Adam continued, leaning closer. ‘People whispered your name in the halls.’

He kissed Ronan, sinking his weight onto Ronan’s hips, and drew back just to watch him react. Ronan felt spectacularly incapacitated by the look, and by him, and by everything.

He didn’t know - he rarely trusted that he knew - what Adam wanted, but it didn’t matter, because he would do it. Anything. Everything.

Adam turned off the light, shifting against Ronan’s skin, and after a second he pressed his mouth to Ronan’s neck.

Ronan found his waist in the dark, and then Adam found his wrists, pulled his hands higher, until Ronan understood the offer. He pulled the shirt off, basking in the revelation of more skin, more Adam, rendered breathless by the catch of it around Adam’s shoulders and chin until he shook himself free.

Adam returned, lower, shivering at the uncompromising press of his chest to Ronan’s.

They kissed. Ronan was feverish with admiration, adoration. When he touched Adam he held his fingers flat, palm open, like raising a hand to the glare of the sun.

He had harder lines than Ronan, under his clothes. There was hunger to his shape, but his bones denied it. He was wide-shouldered and solid, and his hips were sharp and heavy.

Ronan forced himself to think, to stay cautious, especially with every uncovered inch of Parrish’s skin mesmerising him into a haze. Adam was stronger than he looked, and resilient, but under Ronan’s hands his ribs were a fragile birdcage.

Adam moved, trailing kisses, searching out the sensitivity high on Ronan’s ribcage, low on his abdomen, in slopes guarded by the blade of his hipbones. Fingers hooked into Ronan’s borrowed slacks, and Adam kissed his stomach.

‘Okay?’ It was more a hum than a word.

Ronan let his fingers curve over Parrish’s shoulders, as light as he could keep them, and took a breath. ‘Okay.’

It was adrenaline, and restraint, and reverence that made him tremble, and whisper Adam’s name like prayer. The world stopped where Adam stopped, there was nothing beyond him, nothing except for him.

He was _everything, everything, everything_ , pressed close, so close it was impossible to think of anything else.

 

 

 

Adam drew a line across Ronan’s shoulder blade with one fingertip, the edge of the hard plane, the long tense mass of muscle. He had questions, although they didn’t hold his attention as effectively as the glowing skin under his hands.

Ronan’s activities weren’t consistent, but his muscle mass didn’t seem to fluctuate. Did his metabolism - his _genetics_ \- maintain this level of physical perfection? And it _was_ perfection. Lynch-style. Lean and long and captivating.

Adam tried to recall what he knew of philosophy about beauty, about love. A few mentions, most of them detached and logical. Never sufficient to explain what he’d always wanted, or if he would ever be able to have it.

They seemed even more deficient now, as Adam found himself obsessing over the lovely symmetry of Ronan’s shoulders, the marble of his skin. Even the red lacerations and fading bruises were just startling points of contrast for how much of Ronan was just pretty skin and muscle.

He moved his foot, accidentally nudging Ronan’s ankles, and Ronan stirred.

‘Whassit?’

‘It’s me.’

He mumbled appreciatively, and Adam rubbed his heel down the length of Ronan’s leg in response.

‘You’re warm.’ Ronan commented, sleepily surprised.

‘Don’t panic.’ Adam responded. ‘That’s what circulation feels like.’

‘I _know_ what circulation feels like.’ Ronan muttered smartly, elbowing him.

Adam smirked, unseen, into the dark ink across Ronan’s shoulder.

He could remember the previous night in vivid detail. Ronan had been unguarded… vulnerable. More than Adam had ever seen. Faintly amused by his own uncertainty, faintly embarrassed. He’d let Adam lean over him, press fingertips to his temples and the pulse stuttering against his throat. He’d let Adam slip off his clothes, examine his skin, map the curves of his collarbones and ribs, the beautiful lines of his tattoo. 

He’d been so careful. Adam had never considered himself fragile, and he’d never wanted to, but Ronan’s vigilance about his own strength was strangely endearing.

He’d kissed the narrow cut across Adam’s forehead, that had finally faded to pink. He’d sought and discovered the other scars, normally hidden by winter layers and Adam’s deliberate management. The seam along his collarbone. The two silver lines across the length of his shin, memorialising his broken leg. The thin scars on his ribs and his knees, long scars on his elbows, and broad scars low on the narrow of his back. Every mark on him seemed to fascinate Ronan like a moth caught by flame.

It had been late, before they’d slept, but Ronan had been peaceful for hours since. The sunlight spilling through the window had brightened the room early, but he’d only buried his face in the pillows and gone back to sleep.

Adam kissed his shoulder warmly. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’

‘Waffles.’ Ronan said, turning enough to catch Adam’s eye. ‘And ice cream.’

Adam smiled, pushing back the blanket. ‘We don’t have batter. Or ice cream.’

Ronan winced, appropriately wounded. ‘Forsooth?’

‘Sorry.’ Adam shrugged.

‘Waffles for dinner, then.’ Ronan persisted. ‘I’ll go to the shop.’

Adam hesitated, half out of the bed, concern coiling up through his stomach. ‘Okay.’

If Ronan noticed, he didn’t show it.

‘And syrup.’ He continued. ‘And chocolate.’

‘Ronan.’ Adam found his shirt on the floor, exasperated. ‘Are you trying to ruin my teeth?’

‘Never.’ Ronan answered. ‘How often do you even eat ice cream?’

Adam shrugged again, but he couldn’t summon an answer.

‘Not often enough.’ Ronan supplied cheerfully.

The prospect of driving back into town didn’t seem to repel him as much as Adam had expected, so he left his concerns unspoken. He would just go with Ronan, past the church. To the church, if that was what he wanted. Adam would be with him wherever he needed to go.

 

 

 

Ronan took the back roads.

He went alone. Adam had fallen asleep after lunch, and Ronan had instructed Opal to explain where he’d gone and left, pushing the accelerator to the floor along the airstrip.

He was drunk with joy, and relief, and a million other things. He was overwhelmed by it.

Adam seemed happy. Tired, but happy, and right now that was all Ronan wanted.

He found ingredients for pancake mixture, toppings, and more food to fill the cupboard. He found more toothpaste, nicer cologne, softer shampoo. He still wasn’t sure Opal actually grasped the point and process of applying soap in the shower, but he’d wasted enough energy on choosing a good type for her that he wasn’t opposed to using it himself.

He took the back roads home again.

The roads were quiet. So was the runway, until Ronan blurred down it in the BMW. He didn’t notice anything was different until he’d climbed out in front of the house.

The air was sharp. There were daggers hanging in the atmosphere.

Within minutes Ronan had reached the living room. Adam was still there, but balancing a book above his face.

‘Adam.’ Ronan crouched next to the sofa. He stole one of Adam’s hands from the book and snuck it to his lips, hoping it was charming enough not to be irritating.

Adam smiled, still mostly at his book. It was encouragement enough, and Ronan moved his mouth to Adam’s knuckles, the backs of his fingers, his fingertips, his palm, until he could feel Adam’s soft laughter.

Parrish wedged the book beside his ribs, against the back of the sofa, and rolled into his side, reaching for Ronan’s chin with his free hand.

The kiss was at a curious angle, although Adam was taking full advantage.

Then he slipped off the cushions, tangling over Ronan, straightening up and pressing close, and Ronan realised he’d lost his train of thought.

‘Adam.’ He added, though it was little more than a breathless mumble. ‘I- I want to show you something.’

Adam responded, an affirmative “Mm” that vibrated against Ronan’s jaw. His fingers trailed up Ronan’s sides, hiking up the bottom of his shirt and his jacket. 

His hands were warm and heavy, and Ronan was senseless from the urgency of his lips and teeth and the solid, dream-wrought weight of him and the staticky, building friction against his hips and ribs and stomach.

‘Outside.’ Ronan gasped, more of a muscle reflex than an intentional interruption.

There was a momentary hesitation as Adam caught his breath, leaning heavily into Ronan’s grip, before he inched backwards.

‘Outside?’ He repeated, voice raw. He discreetly pulled the bottom of Ronan’s shirt back down, and cleared his throat. ‘Sure.’

Ronan didn’t move. The purpose of taking Adam outside had escaped him. He was losing his mind from the sudden awareness that Adam had interpreted his behaviour as some seductive manoeuvre and had nevertheless gone along with it.

‘Outside?’ Adam said again, quizzically.

‘Yes.’ Ronan swallowed, hard. ‘Yes, the… outside.’

There was a lull as they struggled to disentangle themselves, and Adam followed him outside.

Adam went directly to the car, to grab the shopping, but Ronan stopped him, pulled him against the hood of the BMW.

He looked at Ronan, (eyes, lips, throat), then at the car, then all around them, searching for Opal, or problems, or whatever had provoked Ronan’s erratic behaviour.

The seconds filtered past, and Ronan felt odd, but not unhappy, holding Adam close to him in the cool air. Adam raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t protest, staying close enough to absorb Ronan’s warmth.

He was tipping forward, nearly pressing his lips to Ronan’s jaw, when the first snowflake hit his eyebrow.

Ronan saw him blink, twitch back, lift his gaze. The moment it took for him to realise that it wasn’t just rain. The moment his eyes widened.

He breathed a laugh. ‘How did you know?’

Ronan shrugged mutely, watching snow land in Adam’s hair, on his eyelashes, his lips. On the dark shoulders of his jacket, and the roof of the car.

The snow was starting to gather, but they didn’t go inside until Adam shivered. Opal had appeared, flinging herself past and swatting at falling snow gleefully. Not for the first time, Ronan marvelled at her capacity for survival, alone for two years in the peaceful wilderness. It had snowed in the area the year before, though lightly, and the year before that. She definitely had Lynch fortitude in her genes.

Ronan made sure the fire was burning, because Parrish’s core temperature control was laughable. He insisted the jacket and the heater would dislodge the cold, but Ronan doubted his ability not to become hypothermic at the slightest provocation.

Adam made the waffles, adding extra toppings for each of them. He even allowed Ronan to include the brandy-soaked cherries that he’d brought back.

The jar had to be hidden, to keep it from Opal, but Ronan eventually managed to persuade Adam to try them.

They ate until the waffles were gone, and the ice cream was dwindling, and Opal had fallen asleep in the window seat, and then they ate chocolate chips and cherries with their fingers in the firelight.

Adam’s skin was pink, from laughter, or from the fire. He let Ronan sprawl across his legs and kiss his brandy and chocolate covered fingers.

‘She said you were more.’

‘What, Parrish?’ Ronan rolled enough to look up at him, his chin tilted thoughtfully to the ceiling.

‘Persephone.’ He was quiet, warm. ‘She told me you were more than other people.’

Ronan didn’t answer, for a while. He felt bubbles of grief, regret, sadness, rising and bursting in his chest. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘It was just after I found out…’ Adam said softly. ‘I didn’t even realise I was thinking about you. But I couldn’t stop.’

Ronan muttered, muffled by Adam’s leg; ‘I wouldn’t make it easy.’

‘No.’ Adam laughed. ‘No.’

He continued; ‘I think she knew. What we-’ _Were, are, would be._

‘Probably.’ Ronan dug his chin into Adam’s thigh. ‘She knew everything.’

Adam touched his back, at the base of his neck, his fingers smoothing over Ronan’s spine. ‘Good.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a sadistic part of me that wishes I had made this a cliffhanger. Nevertheless! Thanks for reading.


End file.
